About Us > Blog > March 2017 > Contractor or Permanent- How Data Visualisation Can Help Shape Your Hiring Decisions

Tim Jubb | 17 March, 2017

Talent pools are one of the hottest topics in recruitment at the moment. Most recruitment leaders would agree that they are one of the simplest solutions to candidate scarcity. At their most basic level talent pools allow recruiters to nurture candidates, both past and present to promote your employer brand, and inform candidates of new vacancies.

But talent pools also contain a wealth of data you can use throughout your organisation to shape hiring decisions. The problem for most organisations is extracting this data, and then visualising it in a meaningful way.

One way you can overcome this problem is through the use of modern dashboard software. In this article we’re going to touch upon how a unified data visualisation and talent pool solution (like Eploy) can help you to answer one of the “big” questions in recruitment: Should you hire a contractor or a permanent member of staff?

Whether you’re an experienced in-house recruiter or new to the organisation, the decision to make a contract hire or a perm hire is not always clear cut. Your starting point should be historic data- what has the company done in the past, and what has worked.

The Dashboard

A dashboard is a data visualisation tool built into your recruitment software to help you see key information at a glance. This dashboard is configured and colour coded to compare two pools of talent. On the left in the blue corner, is the contractor talent pool. On the right in the orange corner is the permanent talent pool.

At a glance, the recruiter can compare a number of valuable historic metrics.

Number of Historic Roles

Number of Historic Candidates Shortlisted

Number of Interviewed

Number of Offers

Number of Starters

Maximum and minimum rate

Delving into the data, we can see how successful the organisation has been at hiring either contractors or perm.

Contractors

Out of the 46 job requisitions, only 106 candidates have been shortlisted. That’s an average of just 2.3 candidates shortlisted per requisition. In fact only one contractor has historically been offered a position. The good news is that the contractor accepted. The remuneration package was obviously at or above market value.

So, there is obviously a massive skills shortage for this particular role- with only 1 successful hire, from 46 requisitions. The good news is that the offer to new starter ratio is 100%, so the package is attractive enough to entice skilled candidates.

Permanent Roles

Out of the 55 job requisitions, 178 candidates have been shortlisted. That’s an average of 3.2 candidates shortlisted per requisition- slightly better than contractors. Again, of those shortlisted, the vast majority were interviewed- still better than contractors.

But where the perm roles seem to fall down is at the offer to starter ratio. Of the 19 offers, only 3 became starters- a dismal ratio of 16%. Looking at the rates, information can give us some clue to understanding why.

While contractors enjoy an average annual salary of £52,000, candidates on the perm side are offered on average of £27,000.

Conclusion

The solution in this complex scenario is not straightforward. This is obviously a difficult to fill position, with only 4 hires historically out of a total 101 requisitions. Each talent pool seems to have different reasons for the low requisition to starter rate however. In the contractor talent pool, there is likely a lack of skilled candidates, because the organisation has historically only made 1 offer. In the perm talent pool, there seems to be more skilled candidates. The problem with this segment is that the company is not making compelling offers to candidates, with an offer to hire ratio of 16%.

By increasing the remuneration package offered for perm roles, the company will tap into the most skilled talent pool, and likely increase the offer to starter ratio.

Of course, the best place to start sourcing candidates is your existing database. After all, there are 169 candidates your company deemed suitable to interview for the role. Chances are they have gained new skills and could now be suitable for the role.

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